Fungus » Week 1: Initial Thoughts

Response To Readings

To come.

First Thoughts on a Final Presentation

it’s early yet (I need to get through much more of the reading material) but I’ve had a thought regarding the final presentation.

my focus in undergrad was electronic literature. more specifically, non-linear hypertext narrative. I’ve written a few blog posts while at ITP (tentative ranblings here, here, and a first experiment here), specifically with regard to exploring tangible interfaces for reading non-linear narrative.

given mycelium grows in a complex network of links, and the premise that this structure constitutes a form of logic (if not sentience), I’ve had a thought about using mycelium as a kind of ‘procedurally generated’ linking structure for non-linear hypertext narrative.

essentially it begins with a cluster of nodes containing proto-narrative. the narrative unfolds, branches, loops back on itself as dictated by the network that emerges as mycelium radiates from a single point of origin.

not a tangible interface per se, at least in so far as it’s not touched, but a physical embodiment of a unique narrative structure nonetheless. that is to say, a text that by design offers multiple readings, one inoculation at a time. no two readings the same. a text the exact structure of which is, in a sense, seeded by the reader and then shaped by fungi over a reasonable period of time. like a Chia Pet that sits on a counter, formulating a narrative, and ready to divulge that narrative at week’s end.